2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

B U R U N D I
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trials lacking transparency, accountability, and due
process. The ruling junta claims that its police identified
over 400 traffickers in 191 cases in 2006, and
information sharing with international organizations
improved, but government statistics cannot be
independently verified. Similarly, the regime reports
that 65 trafficking offenders were convicted under
the new law with offenders receiving sentences ranging
from under five years to life imprisonment. Past
data provided by the regime conflated smuggling
and trafficking crimes. Recently, police units that
have received anti-trafficking training have provided
separate smuggling and trafficking statistics, while
other officials do not differentiate. Authorities report
having exposed a trafficking ring based in Ruili that
reportedly sold over 90 women into the P.R.C. as
forced brides, arrested 34 suspects, and rescued 17
victims. In January 2007, police reportedly arrested
an additional 47 suspected traffickers. Although
pervasive corruption is present along the borders,
there were no reports of actions taken against
officials complicit in profiting from or involved in
trafficking.
Protection
The Burmese government requires a 30-day program
of “rehabilitation” for most victims of external trafficking.
It provides much more limited assistance to
female victims of internal sex trafficking, forced child
labor, or male victims of forced labor. The
Department of Social Welfare provides
temporary shelter to repatriated trafficking
victims at eight vocational training centers.
In 2006, over 80 victims spent time in
these shelters. The government encourages
internationally trafficked victims to assist
in investigations. Victims have a right to file
civil suits and seek legal action against the
traffickers, though no such civil suits have
been documented. Victims are penalized through the
aforementioned “rehabilitation” program that does
not respect victims’ privacy and does not allow them
to choose their future actions upon removal from a
trafficking situation. The government has no formal
procedures to identify victims of trafficking among
the many Burmese who are deported from neighboring
countries. The government refers victims to the
few NGOs and international organizations providing
reintegration assistance.
Prevention
The Burmese government marginally increased
its efforts to prevent international trafficking in
persons. The Women’s Affairs Federation and
National Committee for Women’s Affairs conducted
almost 8,000 educational sessions for women
around the country that included information
about the risks of trafficking. The government also
distributed pamphlets and newsletters by an international
organization, published press articles, and
aired television and radio plays on trafficking. The
Central Police Training Institute includes trafficking
in its curriculum for incoming cadets and in-service
police training.
BURUNDI (Tier 2 Watch List)
Burundi is a source country for children trafficked
within the country for the purposes of child soldiering,
domestic servitude, and commercial sexual
exploitation. The country continues to emerge from
civil war in which government and rebel forces
unlawfully used approximately 7,000 children in
a variety of capacities, including as cooks, porters,
spies, sex slaves, and combatants. The one rebel
faction that remained outside the peace process
until signing a cease-fire in September 2006, the
PALIPEHUTU-FNL (Party for the Liberation of the
Hutu People-National Liberation Force—also known
as the FNL), continued to recruit and use hundreds
of young children as fighters, manual laborers, and
logistical support. There are infrequent reports that
some government soldiers unlawfully force children
to perform menial tasks. Burundian children
are trafficked internally for domestic servitude and
commercial sexual exploitation; there were reports
of destitute parents selling their daughters into
domestic servitude or encouraging them to enter
prostitution.
The Government of Burundi does not fully comply
with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts
to do so. Burundi is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for
its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts
to combat trafficking in persons over the last year, as
well as complicity in trafficking in persons through
its military’s continued practice of forcing children
into servitude, performing work in support of the
armed forces. To improve its anti-trafficking efforts,
the government should investigate the nature of
child commercial sexual exploitation and domestic
servitude within the country and take steps to remove
affected children from these situations. Government
forces should immediately cease the unlawful practice
of using children to perform menial tasks or act as
informants and release detained children suspected of
association with the FNL.
Prosecution
The government failed to undertake any discernable
anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts during the